Immortal

  As the anxiety grew inside her, she realized she couldn’t possibly face meeting them right now. She had to find a way to excuse herself and get away, she needed more time to think.

  ‘Let me try and find Dr. Life first and ask him all that we need to know, before we try to contact anyone,’ she offered. ‘I don’t think any of these people are authorized to speak to us or give us any details. You go ahead and stay with Susan, I think they are getting finished there.’

  ‘You are a saint,’ he said, kissing her. Then he disappeared behind the door.

  Amaranthine looked around and wondered which way she should go to look for Dr. Life’s office. One of the personnel caring for Susan pointed her the direction opposite to the cafeteria.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘Ok, whatever you’re doing, it can wait,’ Daniel announced, storming into their hotel room. ‘Come on, we must go right now or we’ll miss it. It’s just started.’

  ‘I thought there were millions of them,’ she protested shyly, ‘won’t it take them long enough to cross the river that I can finish this report?’

  ‘It’s not an option and you know it,’ he replied, giving her a quick kiss. ‘So come on, pack up your gear. We’re going.’

  ‘Ok, you’re the boss,’ she shut down her idatron and got up with a sigh, but there was more relief and excitement in that sigh than docility. It was one of those moments when Daniel made an executive decision for both of them that it was time to go and have fun.

  She adored those moments. Him taking charge, knocking work off the top of the priority list and replacing it with pleasure. She allowed him to command her in those times like she never allowed anyone else, ever, and deep inside, she knew why. He simply knew when she needed to relax, to leave work, no matter how important and urgent, and do something completely different. She also knew from experience that Daniel’s escapades were well worth it; he always managed to show her something amazing.

  This time it would be The Great Migration, ‘the greatest show on Earth’ as he put it. The annual journey of millions of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles crossing the grasslands of Masai Mara in Kenya, through the Tanzanian border back into the Serengeti Plain. Daniel had been monitoring the herds’ moves ever since they arrived in Africa for this leg of Carpe Diem’s world tour, awaiting the moment when the animals would all charge the river, where flotillas of hungry crocodiles kept guard, looking forward to their annual feast. The moment had finally arrived and now it was time to go and watch the spectacle.

  Amaranthine was ready in a few minutes. They were out the door, hand in hand, excited for yet another adventure.

  ‘We are quite lucky it’s happening so late this year,’ Daniel said as they hovered west of Nairobi towards the Masai Mara grassland. ‘They don’t always stick around until the end of November. They could have gone as early as the beginning of October, but this year the rainy season on the Serengeti was delayed so they stayed here longer. If the weather patterns had been different, we would have missed it.’

  Amari thought about this time frame for a moment. Beginning of October… wildebeest migration was the last thing on Daniel’s mind then. For three horrible weeks Susan was in a coma and her prospects were disheartening. Amari hardly saw Daniel as he travelled back to Scotland every spare moment to help care for his sister. Her own mind was occupied with possible solutions to the situation, until Dr. Life took Susan into his clinic and had his staff wake her up in just a few hours. Susan was back with her family in less than a day, and a week later she was fully recovered. Daniel had flown back a couple of times, as if still not believing that his family’s situation went back to normal when it had seemed so hopeless, but other than that he was with Amari at all times, and even though they had to spend most of the time working, having him by her side round the clock was a wonderful feeling, especially that after Susan’s revival he threw himself back into work with whole new hoards of energy which she found extremely infectious. She felt they could do four people’s work when they put their minds together.

  ‘Ok, now,’ Daniel said with a quirky smile, ‘you have to close your eyes and promise not to open them until I tell you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why, she asks,’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Because I have a surprise for you, that’s why. Now be a good sport and don’t spoil it. Close your eyes.’

  She obeyed. She sat back and relaxed, putting her sunglasses on to help her keep her eyes shut. She could order her idatron to black them out completely, but she was enjoying the natural light that simmered through.

  She felt the hovercar lower and touch down. She was surprised. Surely the best way to see millions of cattle spread across a plain is from the air? she thought. But she didn’t say anything. She trusted him completely.

  He helped her out the vehicle and walked her a few hundred meters. Not being able to use her sight, she focused on other senses. She could feel the hot African air tremble as they walked and she could smell the dry, dusty ground; there were other people around who mostly spoke foreign languages, but she could hear enough snippets of conversations in English to gather that they were extremely excited about witnessing the wildebeest migration. The voices were accompanied by an occasional hissing sound that she couldn’t quite identify.

  Daniel led her carefully, checking every so often that she wasn’t peeking. She noticed they weren’t walking in a straight line, but weaved their way through a huge slalom, coming in and out of large shadowed areas. Then they stopped.

  ‘Ok, are you ready?’ he said, grabbing her shoulders to turn her in the right direction. ‘Open your eyes.’

  The first thing she saw was one of those large shadows, or rather what was causing it, right above her head. In the next second she realized that the object covering the sunny sky was tied with numerous ropes to a large basket standing on the ground. She heard the same hissing sound and she finally recognized what was making it.

  ‘Hot air balloon!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of course! How could I not have guessed that earlier!’

  She approached the basket and examined the gas mechanism with great curiosity. ‘This is the gas that was in use in cars, power plants and household devices for over a century before cold fusion became the main source of energy,’ she said, fascinated. ‘I remember some places used it even in mid twenty-first century. It’s amazing that it survived in these,’ she pointed at the other balloons. They covered the vast field, each in different colors and size, each surrounded by a group of excited wildlife enthusiasts eager to get in the air and head for the river.

  ‘Well, you can’t have a hot-air balloon without hot air and hot air comes from the gas,’ she heard a voice tinted with local accent behind her. She turned around.

  ‘Amari, this is Paulus, our guide and pilot,’ Daniel introduced a young boy with a round face, half taken up by a wide smile that seemed to stretch from one of his ears all the way to the other. ‘This is Amari.’

  ‘Hi there, Amari,’ Paulus shook her hand. ‘I’m glad you like my balloon.’

  ‘Hi, Paulus,’ she smiled at the boy. ‘Of course I love it, who wouldn’t! When can we set off?’

  ‘We’re nearly ready,’ the boy smiled again. ‘I’ll just get jackets for you. It can get a little chilly up there.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe, with the heat we’ve got down here,’ she said. ‘But you are the expert!’

  ‘Right, let’s get you in, then,’ the guide said, opening the basket’s door.

  They climbed in and watched Paulus untie all the ropes constraining the balloon to the ground. He jumped in at the last moment. The basket was dragged along the ground for a couple of meters, but as soon as the boy fired some more gas up the chamber, it went straight up, quickly reducing the grounded balloons down below to tiny, colorful spots. It was a very different feeling from that of being in a hovercar – much less controlled but lighter, freer, and in harmony with the light breeze.

  They soon saw Mount Kilimanjaro in the south-east, tall
and perfect with its white peak. It seemed so close, but they knew it was hundreds of miles away. Soon after that, the blue, vast water of Lake Victoria emerged on their right. Between them and the lake was what they came here to see.

  Paulus stopped filling the balloon’s chamber with hot air and they slowly drifted, which felt like sitting on top of a massive feather that was heading for the ground. As they got lower, they realized that what they had been taking for some dark bushes in the south horizon, were actually herds and herds of animals.

  As they fell even further towards the ground, they could distinguish individual animals, rushing along the flat, extensive plain of Masai Mara. As far as they could see, wildebeest ran, side by side, each surrounded by their companions, united by a common goal of crossing the Kenya-Tanzania border and reaching the Serengeti Plain. But first they had to survive the river.

  Paulus directed the balloon into the middle of the running wildebeest and allowed it to drop even further down. From this perspective the herds seemed to cover the ground from horizon to horizon, a never-ending stream of big males with pointy horns, slightly smaller females, accompanied by their newest young, and their older siblings from the previous years.

  ‘Whoa!’ Amaranthine exclaimed. ‘This is amazing!’

  She looked at Daniel who stared down at the stampede with fascination that could only be evoked by your long-term dream coming true right in front of your eyes. He just grabbed her hand and kissed it, not finding words to express his feelings.

  He didn’t have to. She understood perfectly. Making your dream come true was one thing. But sharing that dream with someone you cared about so much was a whole other experience altogether. Paulus remained tactfully silent, almost absent, as they shared a long kiss.

  Carried gently by the southern breeze, they followed the animals all the way to the river. Other balloons joined them, some gliding by so close that their envelopes – Amaranthine now knew that was the correct term for the balloon’s main body part – nearly brushed against one another. Every time they came too close, Paulus berated them in a succinct, but efficient manner in the local language.

  ‘Too many newbies in this business,’ he commented, dodging away from another poorly steered balloon. ‘They keep coming to try and film the migration for their computer programs, but they don’t understand the wind, or the wildebeest.’

  Amaranthine pointed her binoculars at the nearest balloon, the one that Paulus avoided having a collision with just a minute ago. Indeed, there was a filming crew packed into the basket; their camera was so big that the four of them had to lean out for space. She wasn’t sure what they were trying to do, but it seemed as if they were urging their pilot to lower the balloon. Amari was just about to go back to taking in the sight of galloping wildebeest, when a logo on the camera caught her eye. It was the same logo that featured on her idatron. It belonged to the manufacturer of Eiko.

  ‘What kind of computer programs are they filming for?’ she asked Paulus.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said some of the inexperienced pilots were taking people out to film the migration for computer programs. Do you know what kind?’

  ‘Oh, it’s some kind of program that allows people to imagine they are here when they aren’t.’

  ‘You mean like simulation programs?’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s what they call them.’

  ‘And why do they use inexperienced pilots?’

  ‘Because none of us real pilots will take them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Cause we want people to come and see it for real,’ Paulus seemed surprised at the necessity to explain such obvious things. ‘They will never experience anything authentic if they just sit on their couches and put visors on, will they?’

  She just nodded lightly, feeling a warm breeze go through her hair. A breeze that she knew would always remind her of this day and of Africa.

  Paulus dropped the balloon even lower, hitting just the right air current that carried them right towards the spot on the river where reluctant wildebeest were approaching the water. The Eiko filming crew disappeared from view, pushed away from the center of the action by a gust of wind.

  Paulus’ balloon, on the other hand, hovered above the perfect spot until impatience and instinct triumphed over fear and the first herd of wildebeest charged the water with get-across-or-die-trying determination. The deadly reptiles, at first overwhelmed by the sheer volume of potential prey, soon responded with vigor and velocity that immediately resulted in a bloody pandemonium. The life-or-death spectacle would last for hours, fuelled by an endless supply of cattle. Amari and Daniel, fascinated, felt they could just stay there for hours to watch it unfold. Unfortunately, even Paulus’ exceptional skills couldn’t keep their balloon above the spot forever, and eventually they got pushed further south and had to head for the ground. The sun set slowly as they gracefully descended to finally reach the African soil again, this time on the Tanzanian side.

  ‘That was incredible, thank you so much, Paulus,’ Amari said as they disembarked from the basket. There was intangible melancholy in her voice. ‘You know,’ she said, handing the boy the jacket back, ‘I felt torn between the wildebeest and the crocodiles. I didn’t know whose side to take. I mean, instinctively you want to side with the buffalos, but when you think about it, the crocs are fighting for survival just like any other beast. It’s not their fault that we find them scary.’

  ‘In nature,’ the boy replied, suddenly serious, ‘there is no taking sides. That’s the beauty of it. Life goes in circles; some die so that others can live. It’s always been like this and it always will be.’

  Amaranthine looked up at his face. His dark eyes were distant but peaceful; what he had said came straight from the depths of his identity, so deeply rooted in nature that he understood its rights instinctively. For a split second, she saw the world through his eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Paulus,’ she said as she shook his hand goodbye. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  They hardly spoke to each other on the way back to the hotel, each reminiscing on what they just saw. They were often silent together after doing something like this; words were not necessary. They knew exactly how the other felt and they knew that reminding each other of the experience in a few days or weeks’ time would bring this moment of unity back, no matter where they would be or what they would be doing. Amaranthine cherished these moments and collected them in her memory like precious gems.

  It wasn’t until they reached the hotel that they started coming back to reality and talking about the work that awaited them that evening and the next day. They had to pack up and prepare for the transfer to Egypt. After that, it was Europe, the last leg of Carpe Diem’s world tour before the end of 2106.

  Amaranthine felt uneasy at that thought; one of the places the band would play in was Daniel’s home town, Edinburgh. He was excited to show her ‘Bonnie Scotland,’ as he referred to his country, and she looked forward to that a lot. What she still hadn’t come to grips with, though, was the idea of meeting his family. Time and distance would not be acceptable excuses this time; she would have to do it. Susan wanted to introduce her to her husband and children; every member of the family was anxious to thank her for the role she played in Susan’s recovery. Amari thought about it pretty much every day for the last four weeks and she decided she would just have to be social and polite and in a few hours it would be over. Daniel would be happy, his family would be happy and she would never have to see them again; she and Daniel would soon enough be off to South America with the band and then they’d be back in the States. One dinner with his folks would mean nothing; it was just something people did to thank someone who was of help and nobody had to read anything into this. Her biological status was not important here and her relationship with Daniel was their private business; she was sure his family would be tactful enough not to mention it.

  ‘Ok, how about Cairo?’ Nectar asked, ‘can we manage to squeeze them in
there?’

  ‘Not a chance in hell,’ Amari said, ‘VIP sections are totally booked up till the end of the year, even the ones that are under construction. They’ll have to wait till South America next year.’

  ‘This is nuts,’ Nectar said, frustrated. ‘The president of the United States calls me asking for a favor and I’m supposed to tell her she’s not important enough to get a ticket? Why can’t they just play a couple of extra concerts in New York during the End of Year Festival? We could have an all-VIP concert and that would solve all our problems.’

  Amaranthine sighed silently. Ever since Dr. Life’s support for Carpe Diem became public knowledge, they’d been swarmed with requests from VIPs to find them a spot, as if it suddenly became a celebrity must-do thing. Most of them were people not used to hearing words like ‘no’, ‘unavailable’ or ‘impossible.’

  ‘I’ve already tried to renegotiate this with them, remember?’ Amari repeated for the umpteenth time, ‘when we first started back in March. It was the first thing I tried to add to the calendar, but they won’t even discuss it. They had this break promised to them from the start.’

  ‘It’s all about Christmas, isn’t it,’ Nectar barked. ‘Some stupid Mortal superstitions that are more important than business. Do they even realize how busy this time of year is in the entertainment world? Did you tell them all of this?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Amari was slowly losing her patience. ‘I explained everything, but they keep going back to the original agreement and my hands are tied.’

  ‘I want you to try again,’ Nectar said. ‘Put some pressure on Collins, let him sort them out. I don’t care what arguments you use, we need those extra concerts.’

  ‘I’ll try again,’ she promised, just to get off the topic.

  ‘Ok, keep me posted. Now, what’s your strategy on the Joe and Will headlines? Have we got anything new to feed the press?’

  Amari rubbed her forehead, thinking what to say. She didn’t have anything new and she knew the media would soon get dangerously creative.